WBB: Lady Lions Edge Out Marshall Behind Page’s 31 Points

Story posted December 3, 2016 in CommRadio, Sports by Bobby Brown

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Teniya Page and the Lady Lions (6-2) edged out the Marshall Thundering Herd (5-2), 82-80 at the Bryce Jordan Center on Saturday afternoon. Page led all scorers with 31 points (tied for career high) on just 15 shots.

With both teams coming off of wins on Wednesday night, Page and the Lady Lions and Taylor Porter and the Herd were ready for a high-scoring affair. Page and Porter led their respective teams in scoring. Porter finished with 24 points and six rebounds in 37 minutes of play.

The Lady Lions got off to a slow start, quickly falling behind a Marshall team that would finish with 17 fast break points. The Herd were also able to get to the free-throw line with relative ease, capitalizing on 19 of their 25 attempts. Porter made all of her eight attempts.

Trailing by one point with 35 seconds left in the game, Teniya Page made a layup to make it a 78-77 lead for Penn State. This would be the final lead change of the afternoon.

The Herd led for all but three minutes and 35 seconds of the game, but their 17 turnovers kept Penn State in the game. The Lady Lions scored 24 points off of Marshall turnovers.

Marshall also out-shot the Lady Lions, finishing the game shooting 49.1 percent from the field and 42.9 percent from behind the three-point line. Penn State shot 45.6 percent from the field and 29.6 percent from behind the arc.

Some of Penn State’s key shooters found themselves struggling to hit jumpers, especially from deep. Second leading scorer on the team Lindsey Spann made only three of her 11 three-point attempts, but she made up for it with her work on the glass. The starting guard led all players with nine total rebounds and a game-high six offensive boards.

Penn State’s freshman guard Jaida Travascio-Green, just nine days removed from a career high 18 points on five of seven shooting from behind the three-point line against Georgia State, missed all eight of her shots from deep. In 19 minutes of play off the bench, she finished with four points, a steal and a block.

Perhaps the story of the game, besides Teniya Page’s 31 points (five of six from deep) in 39 minutes, was sophomore Sierra Moore’s contribution off the bench. The 5-foot-11 guard scored 19 points on 9-12 shooting, adding six rebounds and two assists. Moore played well enough in the first half to earn the start in the second half, logging 28 total minutes – more than starters Peyton Whitted and Amari Carter.

Freshman guard Amari Carter failed to score on any of her four shot attempts, but tallied up a game-high seven assists and three steals while only turning the ball over one time.

After the game, Lady Lions head coach Coquese Washington said she was happy with how her players were able to attack the zone of the Herd, especially in the second half, where she said she noticed increased aggressiveness.

“We’ve been doing a better job of holding teams below their [scoring] average, coming into the game,” Washington said. “And we didn’t do that tonight. Marshall’s averaging 69 points a game and they were able to get 80…so our overall defensive effort and defensive discipline has to be better going into Holy Cross on Wednesday.”

Holy Cross will host the Lady Lions from Worcester, Massachusetts on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

 

Bobby Brown is a junior majoring in broadcast journalism. You can contact him at rcb5323@psu.edu.